User: | Open Learning Faculty Member:
Background: I have decided to change my hypothesis and organism I am studying to make my sampling simpler. I have observed that deer fern are more present in some areas of Burnaby Mountain covered in forested than areas than areas that don’t have trees. To keep this simple I will categorize a sampling area as either shaded having most of the sky covered by the tree canopy, partially shaded having part of the sky shaded and non-shaded. These three zones represent differing levels of sunlight that is able to reach the ferns on the ground. My new hypothesis is that the deer ferns are more successful under lower lighting levels. As such my prediction is that I will find a greater abundance of ferns in shaded and partially shaded areas than non-shaded areas.
I chose three sites to conduct my sampling each had a non-shaded area, partially shaded area and shaded area. At each area I recorded 10 samples. For a total of 90 replicates. My sampling unit was 1m2. Which I had planned to measure the ground cover of the ferns; however, I found that most ferns covered the whole area. So instead of trying to measure ground cover I just recorded either the area being mostly covered by deer fern, grass, bare ground, tree or thorns. Of my three sites one of the non-shaded areas is managed to some extent because a gas line is below so they clear cut the area every few months. I think this has had the effect of reducing the amount of ferns that can grow because they are in competition with other plants that perform better under higher lighting conditions. The partially shaded zones had the most ferns with 15, shaded at 5 and no-shade at 6. This is what I had initially observed; however, I had expected to find more ferns in the shaded areas. I observed in the shaded areas underneath the trees (evergreens) that very little grew, the ground was mostly covered in pine needles. In the partially shaded areas the trees were mostly thin in diameter deciduous trees. One of the non-shaded areas had a high number of ferns which was the opposite of the other 2 non shaded areas that had only 1 fern each.
